Gosh! What a lovely message!! Thanks so much for your beautiful comments.

Well, yeah, it's certainly been a challenge to get through most of my life, although after a lot of healing, it doesn't hurt anymore. Mostly. There are a couple of situations that still sting, but I can't do anything about them. I just keep working at letting go of them and changing my thoughts toward acceptance when they bubble up and hurt.

Otherwise, a lot of healing has made it possible for me to look back on those painful situations and simply take the insights and learning that came from them. It makes sense to me to share my experiences in the hopes that it's helpful to others, maybe it can make their journeys a little easier.

I can't help but wonder how my own life would have been different if there'd been the internet and access to personal stories and information such as this when I was teenager and fed up with the abuse at home. I'd have been finding counselling and figuring out how to manage the situation or dragging my parents into it - or something better than leaving home at 16, quitting school, and ending up a divorced single parent (for the first time) by the time I was 19.

Maybe I could have stayed in school. Maybe I could have gone to university. Maybe I'd have had the ability to tell a 20-year-old, who guilted me as much as my parents did, that at 15 I was too young to be engaged.

Anyway - well done for writing about all of these important points. Truly life-changing information in your words - and also loaded with compassion and understanding. Great job!